Farm Journal- January 2016
As 2016 comes into focus, the past year will begin to fade from view, not from our memory but from our present concerns. This is how all new years begin. And it does not have to be simply a symbolic passing.
The days on the calendar, like the seasons, have an order to them that give shape to all our endeavors. We can and do embrace the year ahead with our plans and our hopes for new beginnings that build on the good established before, hopefully with some hard-won wisdom.
We have left some friends behind us in 2015. We have faced some difficult challenges on the farm. But there have been joyful times as well, like the summer harvest. Working so closely with nature, we have learned to follow its lead. These winter months are a time to restore our flagging spirits and tired bodies, just as the blueberry plants, the wildflowers, and the grasses in the field replenish themselves for the new year ahead. The blueberries are quietly accumulating their required number of chilling hours (berry sleep) necessary to break their dormancy in the spring. We think we'll join them.
The days on the calendar, like the seasons, have an order to them that give shape to all our endeavors. We can and do embrace the year ahead with our plans and our hopes for new beginnings that build on the good established before, hopefully with some hard-won wisdom.
We have left some friends behind us in 2015. We have faced some difficult challenges on the farm. But there have been joyful times as well, like the summer harvest. Working so closely with nature, we have learned to follow its lead. These winter months are a time to restore our flagging spirits and tired bodies, just as the blueberry plants, the wildflowers, and the grasses in the field replenish themselves for the new year ahead. The blueberries are quietly accumulating their required number of chilling hours (berry sleep) necessary to break their dormancy in the spring. We think we'll join them.